Hummingbird Index: A new standard for the mining chip industry

1. Release of the Hummingbird Index for the first time, contributing to new industry standards

At the Hummingbird Miner launch conference on October 27, Li Bo, co-founder and CTO of Hummingbird Miner, gave a technical speech on the theme of original intention and mission, and released the Hummingbird Index for the first time, contributing a new evaluation standard to the mining chip industry, which attracted much attention. As a new standard contributed by Hummingbird Miner to the computing power world, how was the Hummingbird Index generated, and what industry pain points did it solve? Let us take a deeper look through this article.

At present, the energy efficiency ratio index is the focus of competition among mining machine manufacturers. However, the energy efficiency ratio figures that are more beautiful than one another have become like a moon in the water and a flower in the mirror, which is out of reach. After placing an order, the goods cannot be delivered. In response to the miners' doubts, Li Bo revealed the reason behind this on the spot: in the energy efficiency ratio formula, the power consumption of the mining machine wall is proportional to the square of the Hash core working voltage, while the mining machine computing power is proportional to the working frequency, and the working frequency is proportional to the working voltage. Therefore, the energy efficiency ratio will eventually be proportional to the voltage.

This means that for the same mining machine chip, appropriately lowering the operating voltage can effectively reduce the energy efficiency ratio; at the same time, the chip's operating frequency and wafer yield will also decrease, the mining machine cost will increase, and the output will be limited.

In order to more objectively reflect the comprehensive performance of mining machine chips, based on the three principles of simplicity, science and intuition, Li Bo creatively proposed a new industry standard - Hummingbird Index:

From the formula, the Hummingbird Index does not decrease as the voltage decreases like the energy efficiency ratio index. In order to better understand the significance of the Hummingbird Index, Li Bo introduced the concept of core-to-cell cost product, which is positively correlated with the investment payback period:

Therefore, the lower the Hummingbird Index of a mining chip, the shorter the investment payback period of the mining machine. At the same time, in the design of mining chips, factors such as energy efficiency, operating frequency, chip area of ​​each Hash core, and wafer yield are key considerations. These factors restrict each other and need to be selected at a compromise. The Hummingbird Index innovatively provides a comprehensive model that can not only concisely and intuitively reflect the comprehensive performance and investment payback period of mining chips, but also become a powerful tool to help investors make scientific decisions. It will also point out a new direction for the design optimization strategy of mining chips.

A statistical study of the test data of mainstream models in the market provided by third-party miners found that the Hummingbird Index has a gradual downward trend with the advancement of process nodes (Figure 1); the Hummingbird Index and the energy efficiency ratio are not simply linearly related (Figure 2), that is, the lowest energy efficiency ratio does not mean the lowest Hummingbird Index. At the same time, as shown in Figures 3 and 4, the working mode with the lowest energy efficiency ratio has the highest Hummingbird Index.

Figure 1 The Hummingbird Index has a downward trend as the process node progresses.

Figure 2 The Hummingbird Index and Energy Efficiency Ratio are not simply linearly related

Figure 3 Hummingbird index of the same mining machine in different working modes

Figure 4 Hummingbird index of the same mining machine in different working modes

The next generation chip H9 of Hummingbird has better performance in single chip computing power, energy efficiency ratio, Hummingbird index and stability. The important technical parameters are:

1. Higher single-chip computing power: Hashrate > 320 GH/s

2. Wall mounted energy efficiency ratio E < 45W/T

3. Lower hummingbird index: Hi < 60 mW/T2

4. Higher stability and reliability: EFT > 3000V

2. In order to achieve the ultimate stability of Hummingbird, what core technologies have been broken through in combination with the top ten pain points in the industry?

1. Pain points of communication system

1. Drop the board

2. Losses during loading and unloading

Hummingbird core technology:

1. Chip impedance dynamic adaptive technology (Resistance Adaptive Discovery)

2. Nonce FIQ Reporting

3.Nonce Error Correction Algorithm

4. New Task Real-time Renewing

5. Lossless Recovery for Communication Link Failure

Figure 5 Mining machine communication system

2. Power system pain points

3. Loss of computing power

4. No power output

5. Power failure

Hummingbird core technology: Hummingbird 12kW digital intelligent power supply

1. Loop compensation technology based on DSP + Algorithm

2. Load adaptive dynamic adjustment technology

3. Autonomous diagnosis and recovery technology

4. Remote monitoring and upgrade technology

Figure 6 Traditional analog power supply

Figure 7 Hummingbird Intelligent Digital Power Supply

(III) Pain points of cooling system

6. Fan stops or stalls

7. Over temperature protection

Hummingbird core technology: Hummingbird VC temperature plate cooling technology

1. Sintered copper powder as a liquid wick structure

2. The temperature difference of the computing board is less than 2°C, and the system is more stable

3. Higher single-chip computing power and lower system cost

Figure 8 VC heat sink cooling principle

Figure 9 Fan simulation particle flow

(IV) Pain points of maintenance system

8. Severe aging and short lifespan

9. High rework costs

Hummingbird core technology: Hummingbird remote diagnosis and repair system

Figure 10 Hummingbird mining machine remote diagnosis system

Figure 11 Hummingbird mining machine remote repair system

At this press conference, Hummingbird Miner proposed a future repair rate target (6 months of operation): no more than 1‰! As a quasi-industrial-grade product, this goal once again sets a new benchmark for the industry. Combined with the above analysis, the intelligent digital power supply, remote diagnosis and repair system, and strict quality control exclusively developed by Hummingbird Miner will provide the most solid guarantee for the realization of the repair rate target.

5. Security system pain points

10. Hacker Attacks

Hummingbird core technology: Hummingbird anti-hacker attack technology

No-execution buffer technology

Array and buffer bounds checking techniques

Program pointer integrity checking technology

Li Bo stated at the press conference that the application of the above core technologies will safeguard the ultimate stability of Hummingbird, and set a new benchmark for the mining machine industry with the pursuit of ultimate innovation and better product experience.